Failed states: Coming to a country near you
War, civil strife and resource limits in energy, water and food are increasingly undermining the ability of governments to control the territory and populations over which they claim authority.
Kurt Cobb
Europe’s disappearing rivers illustrate multiple converging catastrophes
We no longer have the luxury of facing one catastrophe at a time. And the underlying cause is our slavish devotion to perpetual growth.
The purpose of free speech
The unpopular, the unpatriotic, the annoying – these are the voices we need, because sometimes they’re right.
Rain, rain go away? Climate change and Death Valley’s deluge
Climate change is more about increasing extremes than one-way changes. Drought and deluge can go together as seen in Death Valley last week.
Coming home for the first time
We should not wait for an emergency to throw us together, though – we are better off easing into the new grocery lists, new sleeping arrangements and schedules, and new boundaries of modesty and conversation.
The nitrogen fertilizer monkey trap
Nitrogen fertilizers are like so many other things our modern industrial civilization requires, absolutely necessary to maintain our current trajectory of continuous growth and increasingly threatening to a sustainable future.
The “we’ll-just-adapt-to-climate-change” team takes drubbing
Adaptation to climate change alone is already a failed strategy.
Energy consultancy keeps lowering worldwide recoverable oil resources
If there is so much more oil for us to discover and produce, why have estimates of recoverable resources been declining for three years in a row?
Acceleration forever? The increasing momentum of mineral extraction
It is hard for most people to imagine the vast increases in the rate of consumption of practically everything that makes modern life possible. Resources appear without most of us ever thinking about how or whether the rising rates of consumption can be sustained.
Journey to resilience
I came to the topic of Peak Oil in 2005 at a workshop given by Richard Heinberg in Palo Alto. The information had a profound affect on how I would view the future going forward.
The ride of our lives
When have we ever truly steered our path as a species? Are we actually in control at all?
Weaponization of GMO technology? Obscure federal commission uncovers the danger
Cheerleaders for new technology tend to ignore the ways in which that technology might be used to harm humans and/or the environment. But there are always people who will figure out how to create such harm.